When is it intrusive thoughts or voices but in thought-like form? I often get these thoughts, but they seem in my brain like voices, talk to me. Its like they come from distant sources or are thoughts inserted in my brain. However, I also have OCD really bad, and have dealt with some type of ritual after a intrusive thought. I often hear intrusive thoughts are very common among people, but that the mentally ill can’t seem to get past them. I don’t really know to be honest.
Do you guys have insight into this predicament? I often feel, ostensibly, that I’m weak because of this, but I really don’t want this to be true. Do you guys think intrusive to the mentally ill show our weakness?
If you’re experiencing more of a conversation than a single thought, I would call it an auditory hallucination. Of course it’s your own internal voice (everyone has an internal voice), but our brains are not processing it as so.
Yeah, everyone has intrusive thoughts, but people without mental illness are aware that it’s their own internal voice. Also, their intrusive thoughts are not persistent and distressing enough to where they have to act on them. However, if the intrusive thoughts are a symptom of OCD, anxiety disorders, or PTSD, they can cause significant distress and interfere with daily life.
The brain is part of the body, and mental illnesses such as schizophrenia have very high heritability (genetic) rates. For example, if one monozygotic twin has schizophrenia, the other twin has about a 40% chance of also having schizophrenia. Also, about 10% of cancers are heritable. Breast cancer and prostate cancer are heritable. Do you consider women with breast cancer to be weak? Do you consider men with prostate cancer to be weak? Of course not. Thus people with schizophrenia are not weak. In fact, I would argue that people with schizophrenia are strong by showing courage and resilience in the face of significant adversity.
Have you tried any form of therapy for your OCD? The typical intrusive thoughts are: harm to oneself or others, sexual content, religious blasphemies, contamination, and perfectionism. I think response interruption may be of help. I would look into that if you haven’t already.
It’s all distraction not weakness. For me it’s a distraction that I will always have. I am not weak to have these distractions. I will never take dignity from myself and consider myself weak. Weak for me is like compared to what is strong. What do I consider being strong. I resist comparing my self to others for any purpose. All I can do is keep putting in effort which is not from strength but more from desire and want and need. If I do have strength what am I using for. Where does my strength come from? What do I need strength for? What am I doing with my strength? I stopped trying to use strength for delusions that I believe but in reality don’t exist at all. Whatever strength I have I use for things that are accomplishments. I will never accomplish anything using strength for delusions that don’t exist at all. I will listen to people who direct my strength to accomplish what they have even if it is regarding their faith. Then I will reason how beneficial this accomplishment is for me.
Glad you posted, because I have exactly the same symptom, but only in attacks. I don’t hear voices, but under an attack some of my thoughts feel alien to me and can quarrel with each other while “my own” stream of thought try to calm them down. Sometimes these “alien thoughts” urge me to do things i won’t do or talk aggressively to me and condescend me.
In the end it often ends in a cacophony of thoughts, often with obscene content, it’s like my brain is melting down and then i have to take benzo to stop it.